


Lividity

by silentGambler



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Jason-Centric, M/M, Past Character Death, The rest of the family is mentioned, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-18 11:53:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8161220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentGambler/pseuds/silentGambler
Summary: "All that I love never stays. All that I hate never goes away."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sallyhowlett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sallyhowlett/gifts).



If anyone asked Jason if he loves Tim, he'd say no without thinking it twice. Plain out deny it. And he's not lying, not really. It's embarrassing and cliche as fuck, but he thinks that what he feels for Tim is stronger than love. He'd be willing to bet his second life on it. That's how sure he is that he's helplessly, stupidly in love with Tim Drake. Not that he ever has said this out loud.

Sometimes when no one is looking, he steals glances of Tim. No matter what he's doing at the moment —working, falling asleep on the couch, talking to Alfred or Dick or Damian, reading— Jason's chest fills with this sort of warmth that won't go away for a while. It's all the small details: the slight smile on his lips, the way his eyes crinkle when he's talking to Alfred or Bruce or Dick. The mix of irritation and fondness when he's around Damian or the pure warmth his voice takes when he speaks to Cass or Steph. How he slightly frowns when he's reading. Tim just has this pull on him and he can't help it when he stares and— _feels_.

Jason knows he has it bad. And as much as he thinks about telling Tim, he knows it's better if he stays silent. He knows it won't end anywhere close to good. He'll just make any sort of relationship they already have disappear. Jason can already hear Tim saying 'thanks, but no thanks' and drifting away from him while they both pretend nothing happened, maybe wait for things to go back to normal. Maybe only work together when it's necessary. Maybe he'll avoid Jason. He can't be sure of anything and he's not willing to sacrifice the progress they've made.

Tim Drake can be a mess, but Jason is a bigger, uglier mess and all that he loves never stays. Not his mother or father, not his new family, not Robin, not even his new life. He's pretty sure death and some magical pit didn't suddenly change the fact that the people he cares about always leave, sooner or later. Call him pessimistic, but he thinks he's got enough loss for two lifetimes. He won't lose Tim too. Jason loves him and wants to be selfish this one time without anything bad happening, but it never goes that way, _he knows it_. So he keeps his affections quiet. No one needs to know, especially not Tim.

He won't mess up whatever it is they have, even if that means loving him from a distance.

 

* * *

 

Jason hates the Joker. That is no surprise to anyone who knows him or has heard the stories. It's this deeply ingrained hatred that sits in his chest and seems to flare whenever he so much as hears about the clown. And he hates how— how his death and resurection seem to be built around this asshole who killed him, who rigged it from the start so Batman could never win. He wants to believe he's more than just The Robin Who Was Killed.

It feels as if it was everywhere: In the trembling in his hands whenever he wakes up from a nightmare, the way he tenses as he crawls into small crevices during patrol, the slightly shorter time his wounds take to heal after a fight. All this little things that remind him of the Lazarus Pit, of waking underground and digging himself out, of the explosion and the torture that came before. It's easy to forget once he rebuilds his life, once he's less angry, but the Joker manages to remind him of it all even years after. He's always there, laughing at him from the back of his head, a painful reminder that everything is different now. Jason wishes it was something he could just tear out and be done with. But he knows all that he hates never goes away, not forever. It always finds its way back to him.

To think that his death still permeates most of his life after he came back makes him sick. Sometimes Jason thinks that if he hadn't been so keen on getting revenge —if he hadn't been so fucking _angry_ — things would have turned out different. He tells himself it would have been better, if he just had taken his chance and gone somewhere else... It's just wistful thinking. Jason knows there was no way he could have stayed away from Gotham for long. It's his city after all, even if he hates it and it's people sometimes; even when Gotham has taken from him so much.

And because Gotham is his city, he swallows his hatred and fights for it. He is neither hero nor villian, he just does what he's best at and hopes that's good enough.


End file.
